Adaptive bit rate streaming (HLS) content, delivered as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) live streaming (HLS) and Moving Picture Experts Group dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH) has become a widespread form of multimedia consumption. HLS provides a subscriber device the ability to quickly switch between different streams of the same content, the streams having various quality levels, and therefore various bit rates. A content server creates variant bit rate streams for a single piece of multimedia content, and a feature at a subscriber device switches between the various streams according to available network bandwidth.
A content server may include a plurality of index or manifest files associated with a bit rate variant of multimedia content. Each index file includes a plurality of playlist files, each playlist file being associated with a different level of quality and bit rate. Each playlist file includes a complete copy of the content at a specific bit rate. By encoding the multimedia content into individual variants at different quality levels and bit rates, a subscriber device can select individual variants of the content from different playlists (e.g., variants of the content at different quality levels and bit rates). The subscriber device can periodically monitor the amount of bandwidth available to it, and change the playlist from which it is downloading the content accordingly. For example, as more bandwidth becomes available to the subscriber device, the subscriber device can start downloading content segments from a playlist of higher quality and bit rate. As less bandwidth is made available to the subscriber device, the subscriber device can start downloading content segments from a playlist of lower quality and/or bit rate.
Generally, within digital content streaming, trickplay functions may cover operations including, but not limited to fast-forward, rewind, skip forward, skip backward, pause/resume, and others. A skip or seek operation such as skip forward or skip backward is an operation to skip certain section(s) of a piece of content and jump directly to a desired location within the piece of content. A pause/resume operation may be carried out as two separate operations. For example, a pause request causes the playback to halt while a resume request causes playback to continue.
Currently, when a skip or seek operation is carried out on an HLS stream, the device searches the current variant playlist to find the corresponding media segment that includes the desired playback position. The device then retrieves the media segment and creates an appropriate transition between the current playback position and the newly acquired playback position. To perform these operations with a DLNA (digital living network alliance) stream, the existing DLNA stream is stopped, a new DLNA stream is established from the appropriate time in the media, and then a transition between the old media stream and the new media stream is facilitated at the device.
Typically, a DLNA content source does not conform to the support of an index or variant playlist following the HLS standards. There is no capability to select a bit rate variant within a DLNA media stream except at the time of the request for a media stream. A DLNA media stream is a continuous flow of media data broken into a DLNA header and PCP Block. This stream is not supported on an HLS access device and provides no means of performing trickplay following HLS standards.
A problem facing the execution of a pause/resume operation on a DLNA stream that must transition between a tuner stream and a live off disk (LOD) buffer that supports that stream is that current systems and methods are unable to cause the system to play upcoming media frames in a way that a viewer will see a continuity of the media playback when a resume request is received. Moreover, digital streaming protocols, such as the digital living network alliance (DLNA) streaming protocol, do not recognize pause/resume commands. Therefore, a need exists for improving the performance of trickplay operations carried out on digital streaming multimedia by an HLS access device.
Like reference numbers and designations in the various drawings indicate like elements.